WDI Summer Internships Span The Globe

WDI divides its summer internships into two categories – Institute initiated and student initiated.

The 13 students who chose a WDI-initiated internship will partner with an organization identified by the Institute that is doing work related to one of its research initiatives: base of the pyramid (BoP), health care, or sustainable development.

The 8 students who chose to do a self-generated internship identified and contacted an organization in an emerging market that is doing innovative work. The student, along with the organization, co-defined an opportunity, received a commitment from the organization, and submitted a proposal to WDI.

The 21 interns come from six different departments, schools, and colleges at UM. These include: the Ross School of Business; the Ford School of Public Policy; the School of Public Health; the School of Natural Resources and Environment; the College of Engineering; and the UM Medical School.

They will work in 10 countries. They are: United States, India, China, Ghana, Tanzania, Uganda, Honduras, Bangladesh, Bhutan, and Rwanda.

Several of the organizations that students are working with this summer have been partners with WDI in the past. CARE, PATH, Pfizer, GE Healthcare, and Grassroots Business Fund have partnered with WDI and its students on internships for the past three years. CARE, GE Healthcare, Grassroots Business Fund, and Pfizer also sponsored MAP projects in the past, as has Acumen Fund and Abt Associates.

PharmaSecure, KNUST, and Ruli Hospital were partners in 2010, and Druk Holding & Investments, and TechnoServe were partners in 2009. Additionally, Hospital Evangelico and Ruli Hospital were part of the 2011 Ross School’s travel study course, which is supported by WDI.

“Global Impact internships provide students with hands-on experience in emerging market countries and an opportunity to deepen the knowledge that they acquired in the classroom,” said WDI’s Associate Director Rosemary Harvey.  “Many students have returned from the field and said that their internships were life-changing and influenced their career decisions.”

Here are descriptions of the WDI Global Impact internships:

INSTITUTE INITIATED

Shveta Suneja

CARE

Atlanta, Bangladesh, East Africa

CARE is one of the world's largest private international humanitarian organizations, committed to helping families in poor communities improve their lives and achieve lasting victories over poverty. CARE wants to improve its ability in the BoP field, and working closely with WDI’s BoP research initiative, will establish a Center of Excellence focused on social enterprises and base of the pyramid.

Suneja will lay the foundation for the center by identifying high-level goals, the methodology for extracting and synthesizing knowledge, and developing a proposal for long-term funding.

Jofresh Labiano

Druk Holding & Investments

Bhutan

Druk Holding & Investments (DHI), established by Royal Charter by the King of Bhutan, holds and manages commercial companies of the government, makes new investments, raises funds and promotes private sector development.

Labiano will do an analysis to see if DHI can leverage any potential synergies from its portfolio of companies to control operational costs. She also will do a trend analysis of major cost heads across seven DHI companies. Labiano will identify controllable costs and make recommendations for cost control.

John Moore

GE Healthcare

India and Bangladesh

GE Healthcare’s Maternal Infant Care has been a pioneer in advancing neonatal care around the world, including its Infant Warmer, Phototherapy units, and incubators. GE Healthcare’s Rural Health Initiative has taken the company into new, underserved markets.

Moore will help the Maternal Infant Care business understand these new markets, and define a strategy to viably serve these markets in order to affect infant mortality at the base of the pyramid.

Neelay Choudhury

MHealth Ventures India (MVI)

India

MVI was formed in late 2010 to bring reliable healthcare advice to people at an affordable cost. Its first product is a "call-a-doctor" service that lets anyone speak to a doctor 24/7 in Hindi, Marathi, and English for as little as 75 cents U.S. per consultation. The service targets 40 million Hindi- and Marathi-speaking households who lack anytime medical care, but have access to mobile phones. 

Choudhury will work with MVI to develop a distribution strategy, including how it grows geographically, financial projections, staffing/resourcing, and investment requirements. He will also come up with a set of bundled product concepts that MVI can approach prospective partners with and/or a method for us to assess the attractiveness of bundled product and distribution options.

Arturo Huesca

Integrated Development Foundation (IDF)

Bangladesh

IDF is a non-profit organization that combats poverty in the impassable hilly regions and other underserved areas of Bangladesh for creating a poverty-free country.   

Huesca will study the feasibility of eco-tourism in Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) in particular, and Bangladesh in general. The feasibility study would potentially be used by IDF, the Bangladesh government, CHT Regional Council, interested investors in eco-tourism in CHT and Bangladesh, and the Networking Body and Associations on eco-tourism; and other organizations. 

Peter Coats

Grassroots Business Fund

India

The Washington, D.C.-based Grassroots Business Fund (GBF) is a not-for-profit organization that uses a venture capital approach to support businesses in developing countries that provide sustainable economic opportunities to thousands of people at the base of the economic pyramid.

Coats will assist Grassroots Business Fund in implementing its capacity development program at Indus Tree Crafts Private Ltd. in India. GBF’s capacity-building programs are grant-funded and include strategic guidance, training programs, financial planning and support, governance advice, mentoring, monitoring and evaluation, marketing, and fundraising advice.

Jennifer Cho

Hospital Evangelico

Honduras

Hospital Evangélico serves the health-care needs of the local population. Its mission is to reach out to the local community to provide affordable service, but do so in a self-financing manner. The population around the hospital has grown, and competing hospitals have been established.

Cho will examine the hospital’s business model and augment its comparative advantage relative to other hospitals in providing health care that will allow it to generate revenues sufficient to cover the costs of its mission.

Greg Thorne

PATH

Bangladesh

PATH is an international, nonprofit organization that creates sustainable, culturally-relevant solutions, enabling communities worldwide to break longstanding cycles of poor health. PATH’s Ultra Rice is a cost-effective and culturally-appropriate food fortification technology specially designed to meet the needs of low-resource, rice-consuming populations. The Ultra Rice project focuses on expanding the evidence base for the technology and on demonstrating successful in-country models of supply and demand necessary for building markets and broadening product adoption.

Thorne will: assess potential local implementation partners; detail the distribution channels; conduct small scale primary research on the acceptability of Ultra Rice in the population through sensory studies; investigate rice industry dynamics; estimate costs associated with importing Ultra Rice from India or Brazil; and assess the potential for local production. 

David Yeh

PATH

Seattle, India

PATH is an international, nonprofit organization that creates sustainable, culturally-relevant solutions, enabling communities worldwide to break longstanding cycles of poor health. The PATH Diagnostics Group is a large, international non-profit organization that works in all areas of diagnostics development, specifically for low resource settings, including user needs assessments, diagnostics R&D (in our in-house laboratories and with collaborative external partners), validation of tests and lab and field settings, advocacy and support of introduction efforts. 

Yeh will create landscape of activities of Western and Indian companies in the diabetes segment in India; create landscape of government programs related to diabetes control in India and Africa; determine current diabetes care practices in various settings in India; investigate current business models related to privately-funded diabetes care and determine feasibility of franchise or pharmacy-based model at the village/township level.

Onur Aksoy

Pfizer

New York City

Pfizer is the leading pharmaceutical company in the world, with top-selling products in a variety of different therapeutic areas. In 2009, Pfizer launched its Emerging Markets Business Unit. As part of this unit, Pfizer also launched the Global Access to Medicines (GA) team to develop commercially-viable and socially-responsible business strategies that target the Base of the Pyramid (BoP) as a new commercial market segment.

Aksoy will help the Global Access group prepare its operating plan for 2012. He will analyze available data from various team work streams; work with work stream leads to support further refinement of Global Access’ strategic approaches and tactics for 2012; quantify revenue opportunities, develop forecasts, and operating expenses; quantify financial and intangible benefits of Global Access’ strategies for the corporation, its customers, partners and patients; work with Global Access’ team lead to develop overall story line of Op Plan and develop impactful materials such as slide decks and other supporting materials.

Shilpa Gulati

PharmaSecure

India

PharmaSecure is a social enterprise founded in 2007 to address the problem of drug counterfeiting around the world. PharmaSecure features Unique Identification codes that can be printed or affixed onto every single unit of a medicine and verified by a consumer at the point of purchase via a text message or on the web. It also has communication modules that can be used by manufacturers to reach out to consumers that have purchased their medicines for the purpose of prescription refill notifications, information about new products, and reminders to take their medicines.

Gulati will assess the impact of PharmaSecure's codes in the market and measure usage by consumers; interview consumers and pharmacists and understand the levers to increase usage; explore and assess feasibility of using alternate channels for reaching consumers.

Da Huo

PlaNet Finance

China

PlaNet Finance (PF) is an international non-governmental organization that aims to alleviate poverty worldwide through the development of microfinance.  As an organization with expertise in microfinance, PlaNet Finance offers services via eight independent and specialized units whose primary objective is to develop an inclusive financial sector. As part of PlaNet’s creation of China’s first Rural Business and Innovation Center (R-BIC), a physical hub for dissemination of agricultural information, renewable energy technology, and entrepreneurial trainings, Tongwei II will provide over 460,000 people and a local government with the tools, knowledge and support necessary to access and participate in sustainable green development.  The project will disburse 3,000 loans at the village and township levels.   

Huo will develop R-BIC’s outreach and engagement strategy to ensure that Tongwei’s residents have access to the center’s resources; recommend external communication strategy to import and export new knowledge, skills, strategies and markets between R-BIC and other research and development institutions; and assess the BoP space, systems, and communities in Tongwei County and advise on potential businesses and economic activities that could be introduced relating to renewable energy technologies.

Sean Morris

Ruli District Hospital

Rwanda

Ruli District Hospital is a 150-bed hospital with 8 physicians on staff about 50 miles from Kigali. It is funded by the government and user fees. The leadership of Ruli District Hospital in Rwanda would like to increase the effectiveness of its malnutrition program by considering business models that will improve its financial sustainability, efficiency, and effectiveness.

Morris will analyze the financial structure of the malnutrition center, including sources of revenue and donated goods/services, to develop a case study focusing on its ability to cover costs; assess the community nutrition program and barriers to its effectiveness through employee and staff surveys, as well as by joining the volunteer Community Nutrition Workers as they perform their duties in the field; and consider the stakeholders involved in the development of an agricultural cooperative that would include income generation for the cooperative members, a model garden for clients of the malnutrition program, training services, and the cultivation of grains required to locally produce fortified sosoma.

STUDENT INITIATED

Meeraj Thaker

University of Michigan’s Male Circumcision project

Uganda

The project’s goal is to develop a device that will improve safe outcomes of traditional male circumcision. 

Thaker will: assess manufacturing options, product costs, and distribution channels for the device; identify economic buyers and verify end user needs; analyze user education and market demand creation initiatives; understand regulatory environment for medical devices, and rules and regulations for start-ups and foreign direct investments; and develop an overall business model and perform 12 month cash flow analysis. 

Rohini DSilva

TechnoServe

India

TechnoServe was founded in 1968 to assist the rural poor in identifying and capitalizing on business opportunities. By connecting the rural poor to markets domestically and abroad, TechnoServe has partnered with the private sector to generate jobs and markets for the base of the pyramid. In 2009, TechnoServe implemented a pilot program to increase the income of 2,800 soy farmers across five districts of South East Rajasthan with support from Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) and Bunge, one of the largest global procurers/traders of soy.

DSilva will identify the optimal farming organization governance structure; identify the most appropriate model for sustainable market linkages; develop partnerships and credit terms with financial institutions that can provide access to credit; identify partners to facilitate storage of the soybean produce in warehouses; and develop an ICT-based system to provide timely information.

Colm Fay

Abt Associates

India

Abt Associates is a mission-driven, global leader in research and program implementation in the fields of health, social and economic policy, and international development. As part of USAID India’s Program for “Market Based Partnerships (MBP) for Health”, Abt is committed to working with a local NGO to establish the structure, funding, and operational processes of a “Center of Excellence/Partnership Forum” for MBPs in health towards building local capacity for pursuing these partnerships.

Fay will work with WDI's BoP research initiative to assist the local partner to develop a viable business plan for a Center of Excellence for MBPs in health that is financially sustainable; assist the local partner to ‘learn by doing’ through the evaluation and documentation of management and operational methodologies and tools of one specific MBP; deliver project report to Abt Associates focusing on knowledge management lessons learned and best practices. 

Evelyn Hall

Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST)

Ghana

The vision of KNUST is to be globally recognized as the premier center of excellence in Africa for teaching in science and technology for development, and producing high caliber graduates with knowledge and expertise to support the industrial and socio-economic development of Ghana and Africa.

Hall’s project follows on a 2010 WDI internship. She will address maternal mortality by improving data collection of obstetrical complications. She will implement and evaluate complications registers in eight regional hospitals in the Ashanti region of Ghana.

Rakesh Bajaj

Acumen Fund

India

Acumen Fund aims to create a world beyond poverty by investing in social enterprises, emerging leaders, and breakthrough ideas.

Bajaj’s internship is a continuation of a 2011 WDI/MAP project which was a comprehensive analysis of the regulatory environment in the education sector in India in advance of Acumen potential investments of over $6 million in the education sector with specific focus on private schools, school services and vocational training serving low-income populations in India. Bajaj will source new deals by interacting with entrepreneurs and investment bankers; conduct due diligence of potential investments based on the internal social and financial metric developed by Acumen; maintain a log of meetings and conversations with entrepreneurs and sector experts; work with Acumen’s legal counsel to close an investment deal if the company decides to go ahead with an investment in a business.

Chelsea Ransom

Technology for Tomorrow

Uganda

Technology for Tomorrow has successfully developed numerous technologies that have gained international attention, including: MakaPads, a low cost sanitary napkin made sustainably from papyrus; MAK IV Incinerators ignited by waste paper and a match used for burning medical waste; and the ISSB compressed mud bricks. The group has also designed the Bicycle Energy Generator (BEG), an on-demand, human-powered electricity generator.

Ransom will provide technical assistance in assessing the potential energy output of the BEG. She also will test the transferability of this technology to two Ugandan markets – rural and urban. She will train technicians in rural Uganda, evaluate the feasibility of spreading this technology, assess energy needs and market niches for this product, and look to link with microfinance organizations in the area that can provide seed funding to the entrepreneurs.

Nina Maturu

Movirtu

UK, Tanzania

Movirtu is a supplier of innovative network infrastructure solutions for mobile operators to enable them to address a market of 1 billion people living below the poverty line who cannot afford to own a mobile phone and yet spend several billion dollars a year on phone services by borrowing other people’s phone or using village payphones.

Maturu will work with Movirtu on a market study in about 50 villages around Dar es Salaam to see if they should offer the service there. She will provide on-the-ground management of the impact assessment field work, direct the format of questionnaires, and organize the local field team, data collection, and data analysis.

Yongwoo Seo

Support for International Change

Tanzania

Support for International Change (SIC) is a non-profit NGO dedicated to limiting the burden of HIV/AIDS in rural, underserved communities. It provides education in schools, workplaces, and community centers, and offers counseling and testing.

Seo’s project goal is to leverage existing mobile technology in order to make the evaluation of services more efficient and automated. He will identify and coordinate with an appropriate mobile survey partner to set up the necessary hardware and software; modify SIC’s existing patient evaluation questions to best fit the format of the short message service (SMS) survey; create and deliver a training program to community health workers how to execute a patient survey using this platform; pilot the survey and assess initial outcomes; and troubleshoot technical and methodological issues and standardize method for next round of surveys.